OTTAWA—Washington is preparing to roll out the red carpet for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau to fete a Canadian leader in a way that hasn’t been done for almost two decades.
Thursday’s state dinner at the White House — a chic and relatively rare event — promises to grab the spotlight when Trudeau visits with U.S. President Barack Obama.

But it’s the symbolism of the state dinner and the substance of Trudeau’s Oval Office meeting with Obama scheduled for earlier that day that together signal the president’s interest in making the visit a success, observers say.

“It’s really clear that the president has invested in this visit,” said Paul Frazer, a former Canadian ambassador who now works as a consultant in Washington.

A state dinner for the Canadian PM is perhaps the ONE thing that makes sense in the Obama presidency. Canada is our closest neighbor with whom we share our longest border. We have a lot of common interests, despite the fact that Trudeau is a left-wing loonie. He and Obama at least have THAT in common.

A state dinner for the Canadian PM is perhaps the ONE thing that makes sense in the Obama presidency. Canada is our closest neighbor with whom we share our longest border. We have a lot of common interests, despite the fact that Trudeau is a left-wing loonie. He and Obama at least have THAT in common.

But the OP indicates that he didn’t do it for Trudeau’s conservative predecessor (Harper?).